Incredible Vintage Photos Showing Russians Feeding Polar Bears From Between the 1950s and 1970s

At the very eastern part of Russia, where lands of the USA and the Russian Federation nearly adjoining each other and only small neck splits these two spacious countries, there are Chukchi Peninsula and the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug district situated. The place isn’t so populated and we cannot say for sure what kind of inhabitants it has more, people or white bears.

The climate is very severe and sometimes weather can be so fierce in winter that the temperature falls 40C degrees below zero (it is the same by Fahrenheit, -40F) so that poor white bears and their child start starving and freezing though they aren’t supposed to freeze.

And where do you think they would search for help? They will go to their next-door neighbors looking for help of any kind. People didn’t turn their backs on the poor and starving animals and started to feed them every now and then. Of course you do not have such big amounts of meat at home to feed several white bears. And people decided to feed the bears up with what they had in abundance – tins, or to be more exact, condensed milk.

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45 Wonderful Pictures Capture Street Scenes of Prague in 1980

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic, and the 14th largest city in the European Union. It is also the historical capital of Bohemia. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city has a temperate climate, with warm summers and chilly winters.

Prague has been a political, cultural, and economic centre of central Europe with waxing and waning fortunes during its history.
It is also home to a number of famous cultural attractions, many of which survived the violence and destruction of 20th-century Europe. Main attractions include the Prague Castle, the Charles Bridge, Old Town Square with the Prague astronomical clock, the Jewish Quarter, Petřín hill and Vyšehrad.

The city has more than ten major museums, along with numerous theatres, galleries, cinemas, and other historical exhibits. An extensive modern public transportation system connects the city. Also, it is home to a wide range of public and private schools, including Charles University in Prague, the oldest university in Central Europe.

Take a look at these wonderful photos from Ed Sijmons to see street scenes of this beautiful city taken in June 1980.

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42 Pictures of People with Their Reed Organs From the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

The pump organ, reed organ, harmonium, or melodeon is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed.

The reed organ is a rather young instrument. It was first by Alexandre Debain in 1840 in France, who patented this instrument in Paris on August 9, 1840.

In this instrument he used a pressure winding system, with free reeds. Since that time his invention is used by many others. The reed organ was produced by many others during the second half of the 19th century.

Here is a rare photo collection from Brenda that shows people with their reed organs in the late 19th and early 20 centuries.

 A Victorian family with their reed organ, ca. 1880s

Man seats at folding reed organ, another with a violin, Monterrey, Mexico, ca. 1880s

Victorian woman with Newman Bros. reed organ, Chicago, Illinois, ca. 1880s

 Wedding couple with Mason & Hamlin reed organ, ca. 1880s

 Woman seats with Windsor chapel organ, ca. 1880s

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Paths of Persistence: 26 Amazing Photographs of the American West During the American Frontier Days

By 1848 the United States had acquired official title to the contiguous land stretching westward to the Pacific, south to the Rio Grande, and north to the 49th parallel. Americans had long since explored and settled in many of these areas, but legitimate possession created an impetus for development that began to crystallize as other timely occurrences brought a greater influx of people to the West. The religious persecution of the Mormons had led them to begin their migration westward by this time. The discovery of gold would soon draw thousands more across the country.

This transition from a "wild" western frontier into organized segments of a federal union is documented in photographs. Private citizens and Government officials took the recently developed camera on their western adventures to record nature's curious sights and the marks that they as men and women made on the landscape.

It is indeed a wonder that so many photographs have survived the hardships of the western experience, for early negatives were made of large glass plates. Some of these photographs have found their way into the National Archives as record materials of several Federal bureaus and offices, such as the Bureaus of Land Management, Indian Affairs, Public Roads, Weather, Agricultural Economics, and Reclamation; the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Geological Survey, boundary and claims commissions and arbitrations, the Corps of Engineers, the Forest Service, and the Signal Corps.

Here's a collection of some of the best and most interesting photos taken during the American frontier days. They were selected from the records of these agencies now on deposit in the National Archives.

Frank E. Webner, pony express rider, ca. 1861.

End of the Track. Near Humboldt River Canyon, Nevada. Campsite and train of the Central Pacific Railroad at foot of mountains, 1868.

Joining the tracks for the first transcontinental railroad, Promontory, Utah, Terr., 1869.

Column of cavalry, artillery, and wagons, commanded by Gen. George A. Custer, crossing the plains of Dakota Territory. 1874 Black Hills expedition.

Cinching and loading pack mule with flour during starvation march of Gen. George Crook's expedition into the Black Hills, 1876.

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12 Vintage Pictures of Fashion Icons and Pivotal Moments That Defined 1950s Style Forever

Fashion has always been about change, and the transition from 1940s fashion to fifties’ style was a pretty radical one.

Post-war, 1950s fashion moved style from the salons to the streets, as inventions in easy care fabrics and speedier manufacturing systems meant that new silhouettes could be made for the masses. Having the latest trends was no longer a concept reserved exclusively for the rich, and while people hadn’t quite reached the street style heyday of the 1960s fashion scene, style was more accessible than ever before.

It was an era like no other for spotting future fashion and beauty icons, too, as newcomers Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot and Audrey Hepburn were the first to showcase new ideas – from the bikini to the IT bag and Christian Dior’s New Look. 1950s fashion was, without doubt, one of the industry’s favourite decades.

1. Christian Dior’s 1950s fashion

Actually unveiled in 1947, but without doubt the defining silhouette of the decade ahead, Dior’s New Look redefined women’s wardrobes in the 1950s. His nipped, hourglass shapes heralded a new era of womanliness and after years of fashion oppression and fabric rationing during the Second World War, the lady was back and looking better than ever.


2. Marilyn Monroe’s 1950s fashion

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes launched Miss Marilyn’s career in 1953, and an international sex symbol and style sensation was born. One of the greatest and most recognizable fashion and beauty icons of all time, she defined glamour for a generation when she belted out Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend. They really don’t make ’em like this any more.


3. Queen Elizabeth II’s 1950s fashion

Recently recreated in The Crown, over 20 million loyal fashion subjects tuned in to watch the Queen’s Coronation back in 1953 and, perhaps more importantly, to see that Norman Hartnell dress. While her mother’s wedding dress was one of the biggest 1920s fashion moments, Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation was even more so in the fifties. Elizabeth didn’t disappoint on the bling factor either, working a gold tassel cape, rich embroidery and ‘more is more’ jewellery on her big day. All hail our new style Queen.


4. Grace Kelly’s 1950s fashion

Both on and off screen actress Grace Kelly’s outfits were some of the most talked about (and copied) of the decade, but her wedding to Prince Rainer III of Monaco in 1956 called for a bigger and better dress than any she’d worn before. Still cited as one of the most memorable, elegant wedding dresses of all time, her Helen Rose gown even went on to inspire a future royal bride-to-be – Kate Middleton. Now that’s what you call timeless appeal.


5. Alfred Hitchcock and Edith Head’s 1950s fashion

The legendary director and his go-to Hollywood costume designer were a formidable team, giving us some of the greatest on-screen fashion moments ever – sometimes completely by chance. A Hitchcock heroine was nothing without her accessories, as Grace Kelly proved over and over again in To Catch A Thief, even giving us the first ever IT bag. Hitchcock and Head increased the costume budget to allow Grace’s character Francie to carry an Hermès bag and a few years later, the style was renamed the Kelly in her honour.

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Burlesque Dancers As Game: Pictures of a Gunmaker Melvin Johnson's Dinner Party in 1947

1947- The entertainment at gunmaker Melvin Johnson's dinner party was a balloon-clad model whom guests (apparently a bunch of old men) shot at with a pellet gun between courses. To the guests' great frustration, the balloons failed to break.

These photos of gun porn from LIFE magazine of 1947. This photo spread was meant to celebrate the launch of a “harmless” toy gun, the manufacturer demonstrating this point by having two dozen dinner quests shell dining room targets with imitation Tommy Gun-ish pellet guns.

Perhaps appropriate in more ways than one are these two older men shooting “ineffectually” at a model dressed in balloons–the point being to break the balloons to reveal her nakedness. But the ejected pellets hit and dribble away, the rubber balloons remaining intact, with the foiled men left feeling “astonished and distressed”. You can almost smell their impending failure in this picture (as well as the relief of the model).

Then there’s the Holiness of the Gun moment, a father holding the toy gun in flattened palms., making himself a portable altar for his respectful sons, a deep reverence for the object present in the man’s face.

(via JF Ptak Science Books)

Before Computer: Here Is What People Worked With Their Typewriters in the Last Decades

Before there were actual computers in most workplaces, there was a job simply called, "computer". The job involved converting figures and crunching numbers and often involved some basic translation and cryptography. These jobs were popular especially round WWI and WWII.

Take a look at these photos to see how people worked with their typewriters in the last decades.

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